The establishment of the Internet has enabled the average individual to retrieve and manipulate vast amounts of information from sources throughout the world. In the beginning, the Internet was primarily used to transfer information in the form of text data due to limitations in the technology associated with the capture, storage, manipulation and transfer of digital images over the Internet. These limitations included, for example, the expense of electronic imaging equipment and electronic memory devices, limited computer processing speeds, and the limited data transfer rates associated with available communication networks.
As technology has progressed, however, many of the limitations associated with the transmission of digital images described above have been overcome. The average home computer, for example, is now equipped with sufficient processing speed and memory to easily store and manipulate large numbers of high resolution digital images. Data transfer rates have also dramatically improved through the use of high speed DSL, fiber optic networks, cable modems and satellite links. Further, advances in image capture technologies have also lowered the price of digital cameras and digital scanners to such a degree that conventional silver halide imaging has essentially been rendered obsolete in the mass consumer market. Even the lowest priced electronic cameras and cellular telephones employ images sensors having resolutions unobtainable in the mass consumer market just a decade ago. The overall result of these technological advances has been an explosion in the use of digital images to convey information worldwide over the Internet.
In particular, the use of digital images to display products in electronic commerce applications has become a critical factor in the success of companies utilizing electronic commerce sites to sell products over the Internet. While early electronic commerce sites were basically limited to text descriptions of the products being offered for sale, it quickly became apparent that consumers would hesitate to buy a large number of products—for example clothing—unless the consumer could actually see what they were buying. Accordingly, electronic commerce sites began to include digital images of their products which could be viewed by the user prior to purchase.
It further became apparent that sales could be increased if consumers could make requests to change a displayed image. For example, the consumer may wish to change the size of the image being displayed, change the color of the item being displayed or may wish to display two items together in a specific combination related to the user's own tastes. Alternatively, the consumer may wish to add something to the image in order to customize the item being purchased. A typical example of such customization would be allowing the consumer to add a name on the back of a sports jersey.
The basic infrastructure of the Internet, however, was not originally developed to allow for dynamically creating, manipulating and transferring digital images on a per request basis in an efficient manner, in which the composition, format, presentation, and content of the digital images could be determined by directives presented at the time of a request generated by a user. Instead, conventional technologies and protocols at that time required each potentially desired digital image be separately created and maintained on an image server. As a result, a great deal of resources, both in human development time and electronic image storage capability, were required to create and maintain digital images on electronic commerce servers, which greatly increased the expense of utilizing digital images in electronic commerce applications.
In order to overcome these problems, LiquidPixels, Inc. of Fairport, N.Y. developed and implemented a novel technology, referred to as LiquiFire™, that allows users to dynamically create and manipulate images on demand and in real time. The technology employs a system and method to perform dynamic imaging operations in response to commands received from a user. The technology developed by LiquidPixels, Inc, is described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,109,985, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference. With the development of the LiquiFire™ technology, it is now possible to generate digital images on the fly in response to a user's request.
In a specific implementation, the LiquiFire™ system and method includes a parser that takes a request and interprets it into a set of individualized operation commands that will, in sequence, be performed to create or alter an image. Each command, for example, may indicate a source for image data to be acquired, perform an image manipulation on a previously acquired image (including such operations as composition, text, drawing, filtering, etc.), modify the state of the request to provide information which may be used by commands later in the request (by performing calculations, database queries, time decisions, if decisions, etc), perform mathematical or positional calculations, create a new image based on data, or indicate disposition of the image. The commands derived from the parser are defined as a “job”, namely, a job is composed of a list of commands that will be performed in sequence, and represents the sequential collection of commands that were parsed from the data presented in the request. One or more image processing engines may be called upon as the job is processed to perform requested image transformations. These engines may be added to over time to allow for extension and customization of the system. An output formatter takes the resulting processed image and converts it to the desired format stated in the request received from the end user.
The LiquiFire™ system and method can be utilized in a number of different applications. For example, the system and method can be utilized to create advertisements (visual or audible) targeted for a specific recipient, utilizing information about that recipient to drive the creation or modification of the advertisement in such areas as: Internet radio advertising and building on-the-fly audio streams; Interactive TV and building on-the-fly commercials on a per viewer basis; direct marketing print advertising; and direct marketing HTML email advertising wherein an e-mail sent to a recipient includes images related to product advertisements and allows the customer to dynamically alter the images in order to customize the product being purchased. The type of information known about the recipient can be specific (such as favorite ice cream, current salary, etc.), but may also be as simple as what time zone the recipient is in or what time are they viewing the advertisement.
The system and method can also be utilized to insert data into a pre-existing or in on-the-fly generated image or graphic templates for the purpose of enticing a viewer into pursuing additional information about a product or service. Examples include: inserting up-to-the-second stock quotes into an ad that is advertising a financial services company; inserting up-to-the-second sports scores into an ad which is advertising sporting goods (note that the specific sports selected to display could be driven by information about the viewer); inserting up-to-the-second pricing information regarding an on-going sale or auction; combining images or graphics in order to create a new image for the purpose of enticing a viewer into pursuing additional information about a product or products. Examples of combining images include: combining any viewer selected necktie on to any viewer selected shirt; creating an image of a piece of furniture upholstered in any viewer selected fabric/pattern; creating an image of a house by combining photos of siding, shutters, doors and viewer selected color schemes.
Regardless of the specific application, digital images embedded within an Internet Web page or any other interactive medium require a tradeoff between the size of the digital image and the amount of visible detail available. Image display real estate—the area available to place an image on a page—is always limited, which results in the limitation of the size of the displayed digital image and the amount of detail that can be provided in the displayed digital image. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a feature to the user that would allow the user, under the user's control, to view all areas of the displayed digital image in greater detail. Further, given that the area of interest within an image can represent important information to a marketer, it would also be desirable to be able to determine and track which areas of the displayed image were of particular interest to a user or how the user interacted with the displayed image.